Guild Wars 2

So going up the fractals of the mists I notice that I’m starting to use my scepter more and more in order to either deal with harder hitting mobs/bosses to try and stay alive or mechanics that forces me to go into ranged (dredge fractal final boss). I’m starting to wonder whether higher up in the fractals it might be better to invest in a scepter/spirit weapon build to maximize dps at range or stick it out in melee with my AH/crit build and do for mediocre damage at range for those fights.

Thoughts?

Stay with your build in my opinion. To completely change your play-style over a couple gimmicky bosses seems like a bad idea. I personally was able to handle melee on the Dredge guy, just rolled a lot.

Stay with what you have. The scepter, as is, without any traits, etc will be fine for pve.

Actually it is not a horrible weapon, but we all know the issue with orb speed.

Actually, AH-Crit builds still work very well with scepters, since sceptres will crit a LOT when you use Smite. Just throw two on-crit effects on your sceptre and offhand. The only real issue with sceptre is that it’s fairly lacklustre against groups (since smite damage is evenly split between all enemies in range) and moving targets, but no trait would help with that anyway.

So long as your build doesn’t rely specifically on the use of a certain weapon type, there’s no reason not to just switch to scepter when you need it. You can always keep your greatsword or whatever in your other set. Scepter is nice because it’s strong even without traiting, especially on large bosses where you can guarantee all 15 hits will connect. Obviously RH Strength will increase your scepter DPS by a fair chunk, but offhand I can’t think of any builds that severely hurt the scepter’s damage output.

And before you say it, yes, damage output is the only thing that matters in PvE.

I used to play with a hammer for the constant protection boon, AOE damage and constant heals from Altruistic healing and writ of the merciful traits, however i found that mobs/bosses hit too hard even with 3k armor,protection boon(-33% Damage) and Signet of Judgement(-10% Damage),so i switched completely to ranged with the scepter.

Here’s my scepter build:(copy/paste to browser)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQRAre7dlYg67mFyIEf4Eh1DCaQ/hVAjXPooEZIA;TQALMGYsJYSA

Armor: Power/Precision/Crit%
Amulet/rings/accessories: Power/Precision/Toughness with Power/Precision/Crit% gems

Of course all comes down to your personal preference,but since most boss fights are not melee friendly (ex. Arah), for me range weapons is the best option.
Ranged dps allows you to avoid a lot of unnecessary damage, see incoming projectiles and be able to dodge more easily,better position yourself during the fight to provide your allies with shout support.
Also a side effect is that you can go with more offensive stats since you are not getting hit very often.

I’m sure however that 5 Guardians with AH and writ of the merciful using a hammer, all standing in one place spamming 1 and 2 would make them immortals but for single guardians i would say ranged weaponry is way better.

scepter is godly in pve.

Use a staff in my opinion, because staff #4 is good for starting fights with. Beyond that staff #3 is a light combo field (so your allies can clean conditions off of you) and staff #2 is relatively good. Staff options are generally pretty good so you won’t feel as awkward or bad swapping to it.

If you need to stay with the staff for a whole fight, then just be sure to use staff #4 on cooldown near allies so that you can keep stacking damage buffs on them. That should more or less negate your softer damage.

Just my two cents anyway.